Wednesday 11 August 2010

Professor Walley speaks of dark changes in obstetrics

Fiorella Nash, as many visitors will know, has an excellent blog entitled Monstrous Regiment of Women. A recent post of hers on maternal mortality, for example, included useful practical information for all mothers-to-be.



Last week she posted the above YouTube clip featuring Dr Robert Walley, the president of MaterCare.

Dr Walley is professor or obstetrics and gynaecology at Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland.

He presents a beautiful account of pregnancy and childbirth from the perspective of a doctor specializing in obstetrics and gynaecology. When he began training in 1968 he was told that an obstetrician has one objective: "to ensure to the best of his ability that all pregnancies should result in a live healthy baby and a live healthy mother".

He and his colleagues were well-trained in life-saving skills which, with increasing success, were enabling women with medical complications, such as diabetes, epilepsy and heart and kidney diseases, to become mothers - albeit with a lot of extra medical help. Dr Walley cites the (then current) 16th edition of Williams Obstetrics (the leading text in obstetrics for more than 100 years):
"Happily we live and work in an era in which the foetus is established as our second patient with many rights and privileges comparable to those previously achieved only after birth."
Dr Walley goes on to speak about the dark changes that have occurred since then, in particular the passage of abortion legislation which has "turned the practice of obstetrics upside-down" - resulting in millions of abortions and "destruction and despair" rather than positive help for mothers.

You should watch this simple, compelling, educational video.

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
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